Aug 02,2007 00:00 by
UPI SOFIA, Bulgaria -- Bulgarian officials said they would transfer $56 million to Libya under an agreement that led to the release of six Bulgarian medics from a Tripoli prison.

The Bulgarian government decided Thursday to pay $56,635,373 to an international fund for children in Libya infected with the HIV virus, the Bulgarian news agency BTA reported.

A total of 17 governments or governmental organizations, nine companies and one non-governmental organization have promised to contribute to the fund, the Bulgarian News.by Web site said.

Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor with Bulgarian citizenship, spent eight years in a Libyan prison before the Tripoli supreme court last week commuted death sentences to life jail terms.

They had been sentenced to death for intentionally infecting 438 Libyan children with HIV virus in a Benghazi hospital. More than 60 of the infected children have died of AIDS.

The medial personnel said the infections were because of poor conditions in the hospitals and not from intentional acts.

The Libyan government allowed their extradition after a reported international deal that would provide $1 million to the families of each infected child. The medical personnel were pardoned by Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov when they arrived in Bulgaria.